


Projection Booth

by ThrillingDetectiveTales



Series: Blockbuster [2]
Category: Suits (US TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-27
Updated: 2019-03-27
Packaged: 2019-12-18 15:38:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18252800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThrillingDetectiveTales/pseuds/ThrillingDetectiveTales
Summary: The associates are up to something, and Donna wants to know what.





	Projection Booth

**Author's Note:**

> When I originally started writing Matinee I had the kind of vague idea to try and explore the same event from three different points of view. I knew one of them was going to be largely OCs, and I knew one of them was going to be Donna's, mostly because I wanted to try my hand at writing her.
> 
> As usual, this work is not beta'ed. I haven't had a beta in years and years, but I'm considering looking for one for my works in the Suits fandom, specifically, as nobody currently in my small fandom circle is very into Suits so my writing is lacking even the casual editorial eye of a fellow nerd. If that's something you might be interested in, feel free to [hit me up on Tumblr.](Https://rrrebeccabee.tumblr.com)
> 
> Enjoy!

At approximately 12:16, Donna’s cell phone buzzes with an incoming text. She pauses in her routine management of Harvey’s utterly ridiculous professional calendar - and a few of his more pressing personal matters, though she swears one of these days she’s going to demand he plan his own damn anniversary celebration - to dig it out from the storage alcove on the left-hand side of her desk.

She thumbs the screen on to discover the usual irritated lunchtime missive from Andy, which reads: _‘Tell me murdering my copy editor would be more trouble than it’s worth.’_

Donna rolls her eyes, affectionate.

 _‘It probably would,’_ she agrees. ‘ _But if you go that route, I know a lawyer who could get you off.’_

She considers for a second and adds, ‘ _Not as expertly as his crazy hot assistant will, if you can manage to keep all violent urges contained, but he should suit your needs re: homicide charges.’_

 _‘I’m gonna need a detailed sampling of this supposed expertise before I make any serious commitments,’_ Andy says.

Donna lists a couple of old favorites, and describes to vulgar excess the thing she does with her tongue that never fails to make Andy’s eyes cross. Andy responds with a thematically appropriate GIF from Golden Girls - [the one of Blanche spritzing her face with a plastic spray bottle over her heaving bosom](https://giphy.com/gifs/golden-girls-blanche-devereaux-QgfDrL9Rd3lV6) - and an agreement not to commit injury unto any subordinates or co-workers in exchange for a thorough demonstration of Donna’s skills, to be undertaken as soon as possible, with room for improvisation as the mood strikes.

The actual terms are considerably more obscene, because Andy is upsettingly fond of sexting for a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, but Donna can read between the - filthy, _filthy_ \- lines.

She adjusts the tastefully plunging neckline of her blue silk wrap dress to accommodate for the flush of anticipatory heat that floods through her and sends back a kissy-face emoji alongside a note that she’ll be home by six. She tucks her phone back into its alcove with minimal fuss, and when she looks up again there’s an associate loitering by the elevators.

The girl has introduced herself before, though Donna can’t recall much about her. If memory serves, the girl is probably a fifth-year, her first name might start with a T, and there’s the vague possibility that her surname is Preston, based on the enthusiastic responses to various all-hands missives Donna has seen from what she’s pretty sure is the girl’s company email address. A cursory search of the employee directory on the Specter Litt Zane website confirms all three: Tiffany Preston, fifth-year associate, graduated from Columbia back in 2019 and came in with second-year distinction straight out of law school.

Now that she has a face to confidently attach to the name, Donna remembers that Ms. Preston is a feisty one, by all accounts. She’s tall and voluptuous with a mane of blonde curls nearly luxurious enough to rival Donna’s own fiery spill, and if rumor is to be believed, her ego is on par with Harvey’s, which is saying something. The man hasn’t exactly embraced humility in his advancing age.

Donna imagines the face Harvey would make to hear himself described as such and smirks.

Though an enthusiastic vote of support from Mike has gone a long way to soothing his vanity in the matter, Harvey nearly had a conniption when he started actively going grey a few years back. Donna’s pretty sure she still has video of it somewhere. She absently considers cutting something together in iMovie as an anniversary gift and can’t quite suppress a snort. Harvey’s head is going to spin a full three-sixty, while Mike goes misty-eyed like a preteen girl because he’s embarrassingly easy for romance and thinks it’s sweet when Harvey is ridiculous.

Ms. Preston glances over at her, startled by the sudden noise, and then wrestles her attention back to the elegantly branded Specter Litt Zane folder she’s clasping to her chest like it’s the only buoy in a thousand miles of open ocean.

It’s not unusual for associates to gather outside of Harvey’s office in the hopes that they might absorb a little of his greatness by virtue of proximity, but Ms. Preston seems different. For one thing, the associates seeking to indulge their hero worship tend to travel in wide-eyed, slack-jawed clusters rather than slinking around on their own cloaked in nearly tangible auras of mischief. On top of that, everything that Donna has heard about Ms. Preston suggests that her opinion of her own greatness is sufficiently padded without needing any of Harvey’s mojo to cushion it.

Donna is careful not to telegraph any hint that she’s made special notice of Ms. Preston’s presence as she digs her cell phone back out. She slots it neatly onto the desktop beside her keyboard to maintain the illusion that she’s a dedicated personal assistant who is hard at work and pulls open a recent text thread.

_‘The associates are up to something.’_

She knows Mike is in the office today because Harvey strolled past this morning with more of a spring in his step than usual, which generally indicates that he and Mike rode in together, and probably made out a little in the backseat of the town car while Ray politely focused his attention on not killing anybody as he navigated the chaotic gauntlet of rush hour traffic. Plus, Harvey had her book a table at Giordano’s for one o’clock, and as Mike has a tendency to go into absolute fits over their lamb sausage orecchiette there’s no way Harvey would take a lunch there without him.

 _‘When are they not?_ ,’ Mike asks a few seconds later.

While this assessment is technically accurate, his failure to grasp the potential severity of the situation has more to do with a lack of understanding on his part than an overreaction on Donna’s. Back when Mike was an associate, he was too busy swanning around trying to get Harvey’s attention - and dreading the discovery of his law degree fraud - to get up to any of the usual office shenanigans, so his conceptual grasp of the prospective disaster this could become is somewhat limited.

 _‘This isn’t the usual bullshit,’_ Donna explains patiently. And then, because she doesn’t want Mike to fly into a panic on Harvey’s behalf, as he tends to do, ‘ _I think they might be trying to prank him?’_

 _‘If they want to gamble with their lives, that’s their prerogative,’_ he replies.

Donna waits him out for thirty seconds, drumming her fingers against her desk and clicking around on the Louboutin website. Mike doesn’t disappoint, because he’s a) insatiably curious, and b) an actual child.

_‘Is it a good one, at least?’_

_‘Not sure what they’re planning,’_ Donna admits, and blinks curiously when the elaborate system of decorative mirrors she’s constructed throughout the hallway alerts her to three more associates gathering in the smaller of the two conference rooms.

She recognizes one of them as Saanvi, the nerdy pop-culture aficionado she sometimes calls Mike Jr. just to enjoy the way Harvey’s eye twitches at the comparison, and one as Seohyun, an almost pathologically reserved wordsmith who Rachel always enlists to comb over especially sensitive contracts. Donna has never met the third associate personally, but she’s seen her get pulled into projects with Louis often enough that she assumes the young woman must have a talent for finance, to say nothing of the strength of character required to put up with Louis Litt for extended periods.

She supposes they expect her to take it as a coincidence that the conference room they’re posting up in has a near-perfect line of sight directly into Harvey’s office, the devious little amateurs.

 _‘I could use a man on the ground_ ,’ she adds, and Mike comes back with a string of thumbs-up emojis almost before she can blink. For such an easy-going guy, he takes a perverse amount of pleasure in catapulting himself directly into the epicenter of other people's drama whenever the opportunity arises. It’s lucky for him that Harvey tends to attract spectacle like a magnet, or he’d have to take up an adult hobby, like day-drinking, or shuffleboard.

 _007 reporting for duty,_ Mike confirms. Donna gives her hair an approving little flip. She could do worse than to be cast in one of Dame Judi Dench’s iconic roles.

She directs Mike to the conference room and then settles in to try and finesse Harvey’s calendar into giving up a long weekend roughly four months from now. It’s not an easy task, considering his time nowadays bills out at nearly two thousand dollars and every second spent out of the office is money the firm’s not making. Which is to say nothing of the prospective clients hovering anxiously on his waitlist, desperate to throw themselves on the first opening that pops up, regardless of convenience or suitability.

That profile in Time Magazine back in 2017 sent Harvey skyrocketing to a level of professional acclaim that, frankly, nobody expected, and has been hell to sustain, from both a logistical standpoint and an interpersonal one. Harvey is lucky that Mike loves the law at least as much as he does, or their marriage would have been on the rocks before it even really started.

It helps that the firm made Rachel managing partner a few years back by unanimous vote. While Louis continues to police the books with all the unyielding miserliness of a medieval tax collector, Rachel is much more accommodating when it comes to balancing a healthy and fulfilling personal life with the shark-infested nightmare that is a lucrative career in corporate law.

She has something of a soft spot for Harvey - by dint of her frequently exasperated but deeply unshakeable affection for Mike - so she probably won’t mind Donna playing a little Three-Card Monte to divvy out a portion of his workload among the rest of the senior partners for a few days so he and his husband can enjoy a romantic trip to Napa, even if a few clients throw hissy-fits about not rating personal attention from The Harvey Specter.

She successfully manages to clear most of an afternoon with some creative timekeeping and a little minor abuse of Louis’s schedule, immediately blocking the window out so nobody will try and weasel their way into a much-coveted slot on the docket. Most of the other assistants know better than to come at Donna like that, but there are always unknown quantities, even internally, and sometimes ordinary people get it into their heads that they’d do well to take a risk and fatally mistake Donna for a weak link.

Case in point: Ms. Preston, who is peering in the direction of Harvey’s office every three minutes or so, past the leaves of the decorative ficus she’s using as questionably effective camouflage.

Donna glances over, too, just to check - Harvey is still plugging away at a stack of briefs for the upcoming ChemTel acquisition - and then to the mirror on her desk. Through a series of meticulously angled reflections, she can see that Mike has managed to infiltrate the conference room, as instructed.

He’s wearing one of the stylishly flattering casual ensembles that Harvey always vocally denounces, despite his rather telling tendency to whisk Mike away for a lunchtime quickie whenever he shows up flashing excessive collarbone. Somebody appears to have provided a bowl of popcorn, to what end Donna can’t quite guess, and Mike looks more sadistically gleeful than usual.

 _‘Report,’_ Donna demands, without taking her eyes off him.

Mike fishes his phone out of his trouser pocket with gratifying immediacy and says, ‘ _The one by the elevators wants to make a pass at Harvey, please let me have this.’_

There is no amount of willpower that could keep Donna’s eyebrows at a respectable height upon receipt of that announcement. She can feel them making a desperate bid to abscond into her hair even as she struggles to school the rest of her expression into a mask of workday boredom. Ms. Preston is thankfully too intent on her own cell phone to notice.

Well, Donna considers, that explains the popcorn, at least.

 _‘You owe me one,’_ she sends to Mike, who replies with a miscellaneous handful of agreeable emojis.

 _‘Make sure Ben records it,’_ he adds a spare second later, as if Donna hadn’t arrived at that conclusion on her own as soon as the words ‘making a pass’ saturated her consciousness.

 _‘What am I, new?,’_ she sends back, and sets her phone aside.

She risks a glance at Ms. Preston - still firmly planted in the elevator bay, texting away with furor - and pulls up the Skype for Business screen, scrolling through her recent contacts until she finds Benjamin. With a swift double-click, a chat window pops open.

 _‘Can you record audio from Harvey’s office?’_ she asks.

Benjamin - who is never more than six inches from a computer at any given time if he can help it, and would probably wire his brain directly into one if offered the option - replies almost instantaneously.

_‘Not legally.’_

_‘I’ll pay you $50,’_ Donna offers. She watches a series of dots ebb and sway in the incoming text field while Benjamin organizes his thoughts.

 _‘Still illegal,’_ he says. Then, ‘ _You know what I want.’_

Donna sighs to herself, irritated, and flicks a gaze at the ceiling. She hopes he can see the weight of her dissatisfaction through the built-in webcam he’s almost certainly hacked.

 _‘I will see if I can convince Andy to make the cheesecake for you,’_ she supplies graciously.

This is what she gets for befriending tech nerds and entering into lucrative and deeply fulfilling entrepreneurial partnerships with them. Give them an inch, and suddenly they have the audacity to try and extort baked goods in exchange for perfectly reasonable minor favors that may or may not technically fall under the umbrella of corporate espionage.

She’s not entirely sure how Benjamin manages to communicate a sense of smug superiority via tasteful twelve-point sans serif, but it comes through loud and clear.

_‘And I get the $50.’_

_‘Done,’_ Donna agrees without further negotiation.

She’s paid more to collect quality mockery material on Harvey in the past, and Andy secretly loves making cheesecake, which is lucky, as the kitchen is the one kingdom that Donna has never managed to conquer. She’s a little amazed that Andy _has_ , actually - at least insofar as cheesecake is concerned - considering career and scheduling constraints. She suspects it has something to do with the conventional wisdom that baking is a good way to relieve stress, in combination with the reality that being a globally celebrated investigative journalist isn’t exactly a low-intensity job.

 _‘Video too, obviously,’_ Donna adds. ‘ _Movie-grade.’_

 _‘Our cameras aren’t equipped for high definition,’_ Benjamin argues.

_‘Equivocation is the crutch of lesser men.’_

Benjamin doesn’t respond, but the security camera just down the hallway rotates with a faint hum, its blinking red light coming into view as the lens extends in the direction of Harvey’s office.

 _‘Wiring in through your intercom,’_ Benjamin announces, as the light on the button for Donna’s main line flares to life. ‘ _How long do you want me to record for?’_

 _‘You’ll know,’_ Donna assures, without further explanation. Mostly because the lack of a specific plan or timeline will irritate Benjamin - who deserves a bit of discomfort for having the gall to play hardball with her - but also because Harvey was rendered largely oblivious to anything but more overt sexual advances the moment he managed to lock down the guy whose dick he spent the better part of five years panting after. It might take him awhile to notice Ms. Preston’s game, and Donna wants a Scorceseian view of every awkward, glorious second.

Benjamin texts her a link to a live video feed, as is their usual practice in these situations, and Donna gives it a quick glance to ensure that everything is in proper working order before replying with her thanks, thumbing her phone dark, and setting it aside. There’s no need to watch along for now - she can see Harvey in person if she turns her head an inch to the left, and it’s guaranteed the real action won’t be starting until she abandons her post as gatekeeper.

She’s curious to see just how Ms. Preston plans to lure her away. Plenty of associates - and other, more nefarious parties, over the years - have tried, and almost none of them have managed it without Donna’s knowledge and willing participation, even if they might not have known they had it at the time.

She imagines that Ms. Preston’s gambit involves whoever she’s in communication with on the other end of that cell phone, which is rookie mistake number one: it’s a fool’s move to entrust such an integral task to an outside party. Mistake number two is trying to get the drop on Donna at all, which is not only nearly impossible but mildly insulting.

Donna has been personally responsible for Harvey’s daily well-being for nearly twenty years. She’s seen all the tricks. Hell, she invented some of them, on days when Harvey needed a little shaking up for his own good. Ms. Preston’s success would have been far better served if she’d had the wherewithal to flatter Donna’s ego by offering a bribe instead of committing offense against it by trying to outmaneuver her.

Donna rests her chin in her hand and studies Ms. Preston out of the corner of her eye, even as she clicks back through to her web browser and earmarks a pair of stiletto pumps for the next time Andy needs a quick ticket out of the doghouse.

Now that she has the full picture, Ms. Preston’s intentions are glaringly obvious - the pointedly framed décolletage and suede fuck-me heels, the way she periodically presses her mouth into a line like she wants to bite her lip but can’t risk smearing her lipstick. She keeps fiddling with her hair and there’s a nervous flush in her sweet, heart-shaped face that makes Donna’s predatory instincts rise. Ms. Preston is lucky she’s a first-time offender, and that Donna is in the mood to be entertained, or this would be akin to one of those tremendously upsetting episodes of Planet Earth where a baby gazelle meets a hungry lioness on the battlegrounds of natural selection.

Donna is, of course, the lioness.

She’s jumping between further internet shopping and drafting a letter to one of Harvey’s newer clients - politely but inarguably requesting to move a meeting from the Friday she’s trying to free up to the one immediately following - when her second line rings with the number of the lobby downstairs.

Donna smiles to herself. Showtime.

“Specter Litt Zane, Harvey Specter’s office,” she greets perfunctorily, adding a particularly fetching pair of bedazzled slingbacks to her list of favorites.

“Sorry to bother you, Ms. Paulsen,” comes the timid voice of Rodrigo, one of the friendlier doormen manning the desk at the building’s entrance. “There’s a bouquet down here for you. I would have just tossed it, like usual, but the delivery guy is refusing to leave until you sign for it personally.”

“Well, that’s quite a conundrum,” Donna drawls, louder than is probably strictly necessary from the way Ms. Preston’s eyes dart toward her, suspicious. She leans into the charade, knitting her brow together in farcical concern even as she mentally docks Ms. Preston a point for sloppy planning. “You say he won’t leave until I come and sign for them?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Me, specifically?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Rodrigo assures apologetically.

“How big is the bouquet?”

Rodrigo makes a considering noise and says, “Gotta be two feet high, at least.”

Donna hums thoughtfully to herself. It’s alarmingly clear that Ms. Preston didn’t bother doing her due diligence. If she had, she would be well aware that Donna banned fresh-cut flowers in the office back when she and Harvey were still working for the District Attorney.

It took three well-meaning wildflower bouquets for Donna to realize that Harvey has _miserable_ hay fever, but, in his usual destructively macho fashion, refuses to acknowledge or address it in any way. Having grown bored of watching him sniffle and sneeze and itch, she put her foot down when it became eminently obvious that Harvey wasn’t going to do it on his own.

If this ban on flora also happens to be why she receives handbags and spa weekends for Secretary’s Day instead of dated clusters of ribbon-wrapped camellias, which both satisfies her elevated taste and keeps Harvey’s sense of self-sufficiency intact, Donna will proudly boast that she’s always had a knack for the art of compromise.

“You want me to have him escorted out?” Rodrigo offers, clearly flustered by the situation and doing his best to mitigate the possibility of triggering an emotional outburst. It doesn’t happen often, but Donna is no more immune to daily pressures than anyone, though she may be better equipped by some measures to shoulder them, and even she sometimes stumbles beneath their weight. Unfortunately, Rodrigo has had a ringside seat to a few of her less proud moments.

She hasn’t been in true danger of buckling since 2013 - except for that scare they had a little while back when Mike took a header over the hood of a Subaru Crosstrek on his way in for a meeting - but bless Rodrigo for trying to preserve her sanity, in any case. She’ll have to bring him some cheesecake, too.

“No, thank you, Rodrigo,” she assuages calmly. “I’ll come down and handle him myself.”

She doesn’t detail precisely how she intends to effect said handling, and Rodrigo wisely doesn’t ask. He’s seen Donna eviscerate enough handsy business execs and self-important visiting professionals over the years to know better.

“Yes, ma’am,” he says, amusement coloring his tone. She can hear him before he hangs up, announcing to the delivery boy that she’s heading down to the lobby in an ominous tone that explicitly implies the delivery boy does _not_ want to be there when she arrives.

She doesn’t actually think he will be. Once he has confirmation from Ms. Preston that Donna is on the move she imagines he’ll scarper and leave behind whatever monstrosity of sunflowers and hideously dyed daisies he was swindled into carting over on Ms. Preston’s behalf. She hopes the poor kid at least had the sense to collect his reward for services rendered _before_ he dragged the doomed arrangement all the way here, but if Ms. Preston is even a third of the piranha that reputation paints her to be, Donna very much doubts it.

She strides briskly over to the nearest elevator, Ms. Preston perking up at her approach.

Donna peers over at her as the doors to one of the cars slide open with a pleasant chime, and to Ms. Preston’s credit, she flashes a winsome, close-mouthed smile, seeming legitimately unperturbed to have the largest obstacle to her success standing only a few feet away. Granted, she might not be so well-contained if she knew that Donna was not only onto her ploy but shamelessly exploiting it for her own entertainment, but Donna isn’t in the habit of ruminating much on could-be’s.

“Going down?” she asks politely, stepping toward the car.

“Oh, no,” Ms. Preston explains, extending an arm to usher Donna into the elevator, which is a ballsy enough maneuver to earn her another grudging point of Donna’s respect despite the flower delivery scheme being particularly gauche. “It’s all yours. I’m just waiting on someone.”

It’s a subtle deflection, Ms. Preston trusting that her statement will be accepted on skewed understanding as opposed to outright lying. She’s waiting on someone, certainly. On _Donna_ , to leave, rather than on an intimated third party to arrive. It’s a standard baby lawyer move but Donna approves of the slick delivery. She flashes Ms. Preston a small, amiable smile as she hits the button for the lobby and waits patiently for the doors to glide closed.

Mike catches her eye before they do, and when he wags his eyebrows excitedly over his shit-eating grin, she winks elaborately in response. Harvey will, naturally, want to murder them both for facilitating the shenanigans in which he will presently be embroiled, but Donna is willing to court his wrath in the pursuit of greater humor.

Besides, Mike will find some way to soothe Harvey’s temper over the course of their lunch date. The boy has a very talented tongue.

 

……

 

As expected, Donna finds Rodrigo alone in the lobby, skeptically eyeballing an ostentatiously huge floral arrangement.

“Let me guess,” she says as she sashays her way over, “he was called urgently back to his very busy work as a flower delivery boy?”

Rodrigo opens his hands and shrugs, gesturing helplessly to the bouquet. It’s a surprisingly classy assortment - mostly white with pops of green, made up of ruffle-edged tulips, delicate sprays of berries, and some plush variety of cabbage rose that Donna isn’t enough of a flower aficionado to identify.

“It’s nicer than I expected,” she observes, reaching out to tug at one of the waxy tulip leaves. The blossom sways toward her in a burst of soft, sweet fragrance and Donna sighs wistfully. “Shame.”

“Into the incinerator?”

“Oh, absolutely.”

“You know, Ms. Paulsen,” Rodrigo grins, struggling to get both his arms around the towering assortment of allergens and wrestle it onto the floor behind the desk without spilling its contents all over the place, “I would think that all the men whose hearts you break would know better by now than to send you flowers.”

“Those are for Harvey,” Donna corrects. She shoots Rodrigo a sultry wink, and adds in a low voice, “He breaks a lot of men’s hearts, too.”

Rodrigo laughs from deep in his gut and drops the flowers the last few inches to the ground.

“Pues claro que sí,” he sighs agreeably. “Mr. Specter is a very attractive man.”

“I’ll be sure to tell his husband you think so,” Donna says, with a little nod.

Rodrigo grins and scoffs, “Mr. Ross already knows how much I admire a good three-piece suit.”

“This is why you’re my favorite, Rodrigo,” Donna announces, leaning over the counter to drop a kiss to Rodrigo’s cheek next to his impressive salt-and-pepper mustache. She turns toward the Starbucks kiosk nestled into the corner of the lobby and adds over her shoulder, “I’m bringing Andy’s cheesecake tomorrow. I’ll save you a slice.”

“You’d better,” Rodrigo agrees placidly, and shifts his attention to welcoming a slightly bewildered guest into their quaint little corporate tower.

Donna settles herself at one of the dainty two-tops in the atrium with a gently burned mocha latte and the live feed of Ms. Preston’s spectacular misstep, volume dialed down because she doesn’t need to go broadcasting Harvey’s personal business to everyone in the immediate vicinity.

Her motivations for recording Harvey in this instance are twofold. One is pure, self-serving schadenfreude - Harvey is so rarely made uncomfortable or thrown out of his element that it’s an event to savor when the occasion manages to arise, which she and Mike both know and endeavor to appreciate to the fullest.

The other is, frankly, to cover Harvey’s ass. Even outside of the bonds of marriage, he would never be so déclassé as to make a move on a subordinate, and his commitment to Mike is the stuff of romantic legend, understated and closely guarded though it may be. That doesn’t stop the occasional enterprising individual from fluttering their lashes and pouting enticingly in his direction, but most of them don’t make it into the stronghold of Harvey’s office.

When they do, Donna likes to be certain that there’s a clear and vivid record of all happenings, in preparation for the possibility that a freshly denied party gets it into their head that casting aspersions on Harvey’s hard-earned reputation might soothe their smarting ego.

By the time Donna tunes in, Ms. Preston has circled nearly all the way around Harvey’s desk.

“Gotta admire a girl who goes after what she wants,” Donna mutters, sipping at her too-hot coffee. From his vaguely panicked expression, Harvey would vehemently disagree with said sentiment.

 _‘Wow_ ,’ Benjamin texts, somehow managing to convey with those three small letters that he’s both impressed and slightly horrified by what he’s currently witnessing. ‘ _They must be feeding the associates something different nowadays.’_

 _‘This one definitely got into the kitchen after midnight,’_ Donna agrees.

She gives the situation another few moments to play out, allowing it to escalate until Ms. Preston collects enough nerve to actually put a hand on Harvey. Or a finger, as the case may be. It’s tame, as inappropriate physical interactions go, verging on innocent, but Donna will be damned if she lets some jumped-up baby lawyer grope her boss without retribution.

She sweeps her half-empty coffee off the table and tosses the napkin she’d been absently shredding to pieces into the trash before stalking for the elevators. Intermission is over, she thinks, giving her hair a confident little toss and grinning to herself.

Time for Act Two.

 

……

 

She detours to the file room to collect some documents she’d sent to the printer before her trip to the lobby. First, a copy of the firm’s sexual harassment policy with pertinent phrases already highlighted, followed by the Time Magazine profile wherein Harvey speaks briefly, vaguely, and utterly besottedly about his fiancé, and finally, a list detailing Donna’s preferred brands, eateries, and coffee order, for use in plotting future bribery, because Ms. Preston clearly needs the help. There’s one additional sheet, but that isn’t for Ms. Preston, so Donna folds it in half and sets it atop the pile.

When she finally makes it back to the fiftieth floor, Ms. Preston has cleared out. Harvey’s office is empty, which alarms her for a second before a flash of dark hair catches her attention, disappearing around the corner just outside the conference room.

Inside, Harvey and Mike are alone, having apparently run the associates off. Harvey is bracketed between Mike’s thighs with both hands on his face, head bowed to meet Mike’s where he’s straining up to catch the lazy, lingering kisses that Harvey is laying tenderly against his mouth. Mike has two of his fingers tucked into the pocket of Harvey’s waistcoat, absent and possessive in a way that makes Donna want to coo. The popcorn bowl is lying forgotten on the floor, only a few sad kernels shifting as it rocks slowly back and forth.

They’re not usually so demonstrative at work, outside of the annual Christmas party.

(Mike has made a tradition of getting adorably blitzed on eggnog and towing Harvey to the nearest plant-life with the reasoning that it might be mistletoe, so they should probably kiss in front of it, at length. Harvey, though not generally superstitious, has developed an immutable belief in the sanctity of mistletoe over the last eight years, as well as a willful ignorance regarding any knowledge of specific floral species.)

It’s a lovely scene, and Donna hates to interrupt, but a quick glance at her watch confirms that they’re already gearing up to be late for their reservation. As much as she’d like to encourage this kind of behavior - particularly in Harvey, who’s never quite outgrown his instinct to brutally segment his personal and professional lives to his own detriment - the rest of Harvey’s day really is packed, and he can’t afford to wander too far off of schedule.

“You might want to consider the file room if you’re aiming for second base,” Donna offers, shouldering her way into the conference room.

Harvey would never be so uncontrolled as to jump at the unexpected intrusion, but he does straighten up with admirable speed, relinquishing his grip on Mike in favor of tugging at his lapels.

“The file room is for horny associates,” he says, without turning around. “If we wanted privacy we’d use the executive bathrooms.”

“Hi Donna,” Mike greets, poking his head around to peer at her past Harvey’s elbow, cheek pressed affectionately against Harvey’s hip. His face is pink, his eyes are bright, and his grin is too infectiously self-satisfied for Donna not to reflect it back.

“Mike,” she nods. “I see Harvey’s virtue remains intact.”

“Barely,” Mike snorts, sitting back. “I keep telling him this could all be avoided if he’d just get a ring.”

He cuts a quick, teasing grin up at Harvey, who reaches down to cup Mike’s jaw and murmurs pointedly, “You also told me I didn’t need one if I didn’t want one.”

“You don’t,” Mike assures, nuzzling against Harvey’s grip and tilting a kiss into his palm. “I know you love me. Your willingness to wear jewelry has literally zero bearing on the legitimacy of our relationship, it would just make it easier for other people to tell.”

He swipes his hands briskly against his thighs and pushes to his feet, stretching his arms out behind his back with his fingers interlaced until something gives an audible pop.

“Now,” he sighs contentedly, “I believe someone mentioned Giordano’s?”

“Take care of this first,” Harvey instructs, nudging at the popcorn bowl with the toe of his wingtip.

“Ugh,” Mike groans, even as he bends to retrieve the dish from the floor. “Manual labor. This is what associates are for.”

“You should have thought about that before you let them all flee the scene,” Harvey says unsympathetically.

Mike presses another kiss to his cheek, squeezing his wrist with one hand before meandering off to deliver the bowl to the breakroom down the hall. As soon as he’s out of earshot, Harvey sighs and scrubs at his face.

Donna steps near enough to knock their shoulders gently together and says quietly, “Hey, you. Penny for your thoughts?”

Harvey smirks and cuts her a sly glance, murmuring, “Beth, tomorrow is the least of our problems.”

“No crabs,” Donna says, rolling her eyes and plucking the folded paper off the stack to hold it under Harvey’s nose. “Just some food for thought.”

Harvey unfolds the paper and stares at it for a long, silent second before huffing a soft laugh, folding it into quarters, and slipping it into the interior pocket of his suit jacket.

“I bet you already know my size, too,” he mutters, as Mike comes bounding merrily back into view.

“Nine and a quarter,” Donna replies easily, at the same moment that Mike yanks the door open and sticks his head into the room.

“That’s generous,” he leers, with a pointed glance at Harvey’s crotch.

Harvey snorts, and Donna rolls her eyes again. It’s lucky that Specter Litt Zane offers a comprehensive insurance plan, because she’s going to sprain something at this rate.

“You have exactly one minute until I call and cancel your reservation,” she announces. Mike blanches a little, even though he’s still grinning, and ushers Harvey out into the hall with an exaggerated expression of delighted, guilty commiseration.

“Free me up after five?” Harvey asks, voice so soft it’s almost shy. Donna offers him a fond, approving smile.

“Already done,” she assures, and Harvey shakes his head with his usual faintly irritated relief at her ability to predict and accommodate his every desire.

It’s not actually done, but it will be by the time Harvey thinks to check. Donna learned years ago never to make promises on which she can’t deliver, and freeing up a couple of hours so that Harvey can go peruse jewelry stores is nothing compared to the sheer witchcraft of finagling his anniversary vacation.

She watches them stroll toward the elevators, elbows bumping with every step until Harvey slides a proprietary arm low around Mike’s waist and pulls him into his side. The curve of Mike’s grin as he turns to gaze at Harvey is almost unbearably sweet.

Donna startles when her phone chirps and glances down at it to see a text from Benjamin.

 _‘Masterfully handled,’_ it congratulates.

“I thought listening in to private conversations was illegal,” she says aloud.

 _‘I learned from the best,’_ Benjamin demurs.

Donna considers this for a moment, smirks, and lifts her shoulders in a pert shrug of agreement. She tosses her hair, turns on her heel, and strides purposefully in the direction of the associates’ bullpen. She and Ms. Preston have a few things to discuss.

Andy better be in the mood to kneel tonight, because Donna has earned a little worship.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> Three notes before you go:
> 
> 1) _'This one definitely got into the kitchen after midnight,'_ is a reference to Gremlins, which, if you haven't seen it, what are you even doing with your life?
> 
> 2) The little 'Hey, you' exchange that Donna and Harvey have toward the end is from Wet Hot American Summer, another of my personal faves.
> 
> 3) For those of you who are curious, I was envisioning the Andy mentioned as being Andrea Sachs, Anne Hathaway's character in The Devil Wears Prada, because why have one slightly cradle-robbing gay relationship in your fic when you can have two?


End file.
